WSU M-course Review Document Management System
A User’s Guide – Faculty Version
Introduction
In the Spring of 2008, Lisa Johnson-Shull, Diane Kelly-Riley, and Jared Anthony of the Washington State University Writing Program investigated several options for
constructing a document management system that would manage workflow for the review of writing-in-the-major courses, be a repository of course syllabi, and allow data extraction based on multiple types of search criteria. Because the Writing Program had an existing relationship with The RiCH Company (subscription to WCOnline for scheduling in the Graduate and Professional Writing Center) and because the company could deliver a product that would not have platform compatibility problems and would not require a large capital investment, Lisa and Diane contracted with The RiCH
Company to custom build a document management system (DMS).
The DMS is available at wsumcourse.com. We were not able to get a .edu domain because the federal government regulates that top-level domain, through Educause, to be available only for complete institutions of higher learning. A program or office within an institution must branch from the main institution’s domain, not set up its own.
Major Features
The WSU M-course Review DMS is a fully-customized, subscription-based, Web-only software system. Major features of the system include
online registration accessible from the main URL (wsumcourse.com) registration requests generate email message to administrator
administrator designates permissions at one of three levels (administrator, reviewer, faculty)
administrator can also initiate user profiles without registration
upon creation of a profile, email confirmation is sent to user with link to URL users can upload .doc, .docx, and .pdf files from any computer
administrator gets an email notification that a document has been uploaded administrator can add comments to the document and either approve it for all
viewers to see or route it to a specific reviewer
reviewer gets an email notification that a pending document awaits review reviewer adds comments to the document
upon reviewer confirmation that review is complete, system emails notification to administrator
administrator sees comments added to pending documents, by whom, and when added
Faculty Walkthrough
Two methods exist for gaining access to the DMS: User-initiated registration
Administrator-initiated registration
If an administrator initiates registration, the user will receive an email notification with a link to the DMS URL.
For user-initiated registration, follow these steps: Point Internet browser to wsumcourse.com
Click on “Register” in the left side navigation bar (see Figure 1 below)
Figure 1: Home page of DMS with “Register” link highlighted.
Figure 2: Registration page of DMS.
Once registered and logged in, a faculty user has three available options: Upload a Document, Browse Documents, and Search Documents. These options are listed in the left side navigation bar (see Figure 3).
To Upload a Document, click that link in the navigation bar, fill out as many fields as
possible on the form that appears, and click the “Browse” button in the center of the form to retrieve the document from your computer’s file system (see Figure 4). Note that the system can only accommodate files with .doc, .docx, and .pdf extensions. Once you’ve selected the document, click the “Add Document” button at the bottom of the screen. The system will generate an email notifying the administrator that a new document has been submitted for review.
Figure 4: Upload a Document form.
Browse Documents allows you to select any document in the system from a pull-down
Figure 5: Browse Documents pull-down menu.
Search Documents will retrieve documents either by keyword match or Best Practice
match. Best practices are comment tags added by administrator. They function as a separate type of keyword and are available as a set of preset search terms from a pull-down menu. Figure 7 shows results from an “Authentic Projects” Best Practice search.
Figure 7: Search Documents module showing results of a Best Practice search.
